Recycling Waste Solar Panels
The Korea Institute of Energy Research announced on Aug. 19 that it succeeded in making a highly efficient solar battery by recycling a discarded solar panel, and the commercial recycling technology was recently transferred to solar switchgear manufacturer HST.
At present, the service lives of solar power generation units are limited to three decades or less, with the amount of such units increasing rapidly. This means the amount of waste solar panels will soar in the near future.
A solar panel is made up of recyclable elements such as glass, aluminum, silicon and copper. With an appropriate technology, it can be recycled by more than 80 percent. The recycling technique developed by the institute consists of automated frame and junction box disassembly, high-purity glass separation, valuable metal recovery and solar panel remanufacturing.
The key process in the technique is glass-sealant interface separation. The glass in the solar panel can be almost completely recycled through this process. In addition, the technique consumes much less power than existing ones and is capable of preventing mixing of separated components and materials.
The institute made a six-inch ingot and a wafer by refining the silicon it obtained from the discarded panel. Then, it successfully produced a solar battery with an efficiency of 20.05 percent through general solar battery production processes.